Tag Archives: analysis

The Toshiba XG3 SSD is a M.2 NVMe drive which just may be the most powerful SSD on the market….well not really on the market. It isn’t available through consumer sales and can only be found pre-installed in ultrabooks, unless of course you are lucky enough to dig one up on eBay.  The downfall of trying to get ones hands …

As the SSD industry continues to grow, manufacturers try to maintain their consumer presence with more value-oriented consumer products.  Such is the case with Intel’s latest step into the TLC segment by introducing their newest 540s SATA 3 SSD a few weeks back. The Intel 540s Series is their first SSD to feature 16nm TLC NAND and first 5 series …

We’ve been able to test our fair share of SSDs over the years and, to this date, there remains a constant.  Prices drop.  Where we once saw a 32GB SSD peak at $5000 in 2007, today’s world is vastly different and 1TB SSDs are now available at just over the $300 mark.   Value is key in technology and has always …

OWC has been around for quite a while and is usually on the ball when it comes to creating flash products for Mac systems. They have robust storage portfolio for any media creation workflow with products designed and manufactured in the USA. Back in 2012 they pushed the envelope by designing a dual PCB SATA SSD with a capacity of 1TB, while that …

Without a doubt, the most common downfall of SD cards is the lack of understanding the consumer has with respect to class levels.  Most buy cards for price only, not realizing how this might benefit them at times when they are really pushing their camera to its limits.  The demands of today’s newest cameras, and even today’s smartphones capable of …

The NVMe Effect. Our report today explores Samsung’s newest 950 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD. Release of this SSD will see the first retail entry of any storage medium the size of a gum stick and weighing less than 10 grams, yet capable of moving data at speeds of up to 2.5GB/s. This is unparalleled by today’s standards and is 4 …

If you look back over the past several years, there have always been three constants that needed to be addressed in order for SSDs to become a viable consumer solution to storage; value, reliability and capacity.  One of our first SSD reviews was on an MTron 32GB SSD with a whopping price tag of more than $1500…and they sold!  Both …

It is said that 2015 will be the year of the M.2 SSD form factor and, by all indications, this assumption seems to be correct.  This is a very big plus for the SSD industry, as well as a very clear demonstration of the progress we have made in flash technology within the last few years.  For instance, our Patriot …

Controllers are the heart and soul of every SSD. Without one, an SSD would be a useless PCB with some components slapped on it. It is responsible for everything from garbage collection and wear leveling to error correction and hardware encryption. In simple terms, all these operations can be quite complicated to implement as well as expensive to develop. This …

Our SSD of the Week series became a little side tracked over the past few weeks. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals going on, almost any SSD was a good buy. Now however, prices are back where they should be and the holidays are just around the corner. If you weren’t lucky enough to score a good deal yet, …